The Long Hitch Home

by Jamie Maslin

  Danilo and I stepped out from our hotel into the cold half-light of a pre-dawn morning, and headed in the direction of the old British consulate. We made our way there through a section of the old town, where life was beginning to stir, and in the same manner that it had done for centuries. A horse-drawn cart ridden by an old man lurched from side to side along the bumpy lane while a butcher sat skewering meat outside his splinter-fronted shop. Further on we passed a bakery where the internal oven burned so greatly that the building itself looked ablaze, throwing raging smoke out over its blackened window frames and pumping a brilliant heat into the frigid air. Danilo took a photograph, beautifully capturing the drama of the scene. (Reproduced in this book.)

  Waiting for us at the end of the lane, in front of a metallic green and silver SUV, exuding off-road confidence, were Manon and Etienne, conversing with our English speaking tour guide, Ali, and driver, Turghunjun. After saying hello we bundled in and got moving. I could barely contain my excitement at the thought of standing once again beneath Shipton’s Arch and overlooking the jagged floor of the world below.

  We made our way north through staggered oasis villages on the road leading to the border with Kyrgyzstan, a route I would have to hitchhike in the next few days. A craggy gorge ran to our right, rising from an ice-covered flood plain where meandering waters cut a swathe and rounded boulders tumbled in the frozen wastes. I recognized the spot. It seemed only yesterday that I had traveled this route with Emily.

  For the last few minutes the driver, Turghunjun, had been speaking to Ali in agitated tones. Ali cast an unconvincing smile our way as if to reassure us nothing was wrong.

  “This will be the most adventurous tour I have ever been on,” Ali announced a moment later, flashing us the same smile.

  “Have you not been to Shipton’s Arch before?” asked Danilo.

  “Once, but not this early in the year or with so much snow. I just hope we will be able to make it,” he added in a manner that implied there was genuine doubt.

  I didn’t like the sound of this. It was like he was priming us for bad news around the corner. Was there something he knew that we didn’t? When we had spoken the day before, Ali had been all confidence and enthusiasm about the trip. Had something changed? The last time I visited the arch it had been snowy, and although deeper today, it seemed likely that our chunky four-wheel-drive could more than cope with transporting us safely to the beginning of the hiking trail. So long as we could get there, I was confident all would be okay.

  Suddenly, Turghunjun began slowing down, displaying a caution that was out of all proportion to the conditions, reducing his speed until we were moving at a pace that made no sense for someone behind the wheel of an off-roader—more so since we had yet to leave the road.

  “Is everything okay?” asked Danilo.

  “Yes. Yes,” said Ali, masking over some undisclosed issue with the same smile.

  A little hatchback overtook us.

  “We’ve just been overtaken by a two-wheel-drive!” exclaimed Etienne.

  “I think Turghunjun is concerned in the snow because he doesn’t have a four-wheel-drive,” said Ali.

  “But this is a four-wheel-drive,” I replied.

  “No, I couldn’t get a four-wheel-drive. This is a two-wheel-drive.”

  Cue again the sound of a needle scratching off a record.

  For a moment I was dumbstruck. The vehicle supplied certainly looked the part, it had a good ground-clearance, chunky treads, nasty-looking bull-bars and a spare tire hanging off the rear, but if it was only two-wheel-drive, then its appropriateness ended there. It was all looks and no substance, the ultimate sheep in wolf’s clothing. If there was one thing I had been clear about when booking the tour with Ali, it was the necessity of us having a four-wheel-drive. We had twenty miles of snow-covered off-road to cover before we reached the beginning of the hiking trail. Whether we would make it there now looked seriously in doubt.

  “Is it front or rear-wheel-drive?” asked Etienne.

  “Rear,” replied Ali, missing the significance.

  This was even worse. With our power coming from the rear we’d be sliding around all over the place with far less control than were it coming from the steering end. In forthright terms I let Ali know of my significant angst at his empty logistical promises. I could see my dream of reaching the arch evaporating before me, and since I’d been the one who’d arranged the tour and encouraged Danilo, Manon, and Etienne to join me, I felt responsible.

  “Maybe it will all be okay,” replied Ali in a blasé manner of groundless optimism.

  It didn’t seem likely, but as we rounded a corner to our left and approached a small sign announcing the beginnings of the off-road track, things perhaps didn’t look quite so bleak. Snaking along the track were tire marks that had compacted the snow, making it easier for us to drive along. For the next couple of hours we crawled through open country at little more than walking speed, making scant progress. On this section Turghunjun demonstrated that despite living in a snowy environment, he knew next to nothing about driving in the snow, that or he simply didn’t want to be here and so was doing everything he could to justify bringing the whole affair to an early end. It began to look like the latter.

  Despite Ali revealing that there were snow chains in the rear of the vehicle, and our collective encouragement that these be fitted to the tires, Turghunjun was extremely reluctant to invest the ten minutes required to do so—even after getting bogged in the snow several times, and the subsequent group digging and pushing required to get the vehicle free. After much badgering, he conceded.

  “I don’t think the driver wants to continue,” Etienne confided as Turghunjun begrudgingly fitted the last of the chains.

  “I think you are right,” agreed Danilo.

  The extra traction from the chains helped tremendously, but Turghunjun’s driving soon compensated for any benefit, deteriorating even further.

  “Could you tell him he needs to put it into second gear and not to rev it so hard,” Etienne politely asked Ali, in his usual calm and gentlemanly manner.

  Ali translated this sound advice, but did Turghunjun heed it? Instead he kept flooring his foot in first gear whenever a deep section of snow appeared or the tires began to lose grip, succeeding only in sending the wheels into a spinning frenzy and getting us stuck again. This process repeated itself several times, but eventually Turghunjun found the get-out excuse he’d been looking for.

  Further along the track we came upon a small canvas-covered farming truck that had veered slightly off the track and was now stuck in the snow, keeling over at a precarious angle, partially blocking our path. A handful of shepherds stood around pondering how to get it free. We could have gone around it, but Turghunjun refused point blank to carry on. With a look that said, “This is as far as I go,” he switched off the ignition, gave a little obstinate nod and folded his arms.

  We got out to discuss the situation.

  “I think it is over,” said Etienne.

  Danilo nodded his agreement.

  Things didn’t look good, and by now I was in a filthy temper. Damn it, I’d come a long way for this, and now it was being snatched from me because of incompetence. I thought back to all the hardships I had gone through to get here, distorting reality in my mind until it almost became the arch that I had set off to reach from Hobart, not England. It wasn’t Turghunjun that I blamed, but Ali. Had he supplied the four-wheel-drive on which we’d agreed, then we would have been making our way through the slot canyons by now and approaching one of nature’s finest wonders. I let rip at him, pointing out as much and more, while Danilo, Manon, and Etienne looked on uncomfortably at the heat of our conversation. In what, with hindsight, must have looked, and indeed was, a petulant display, I concluded our dialogue by throwing my coat, which I had been holding in my arms, on the ground.

  Etienne guided me gently to one side.

  “I think that was too much, Jamie,” he said.

  H
e was right, of course. I apologized to him and then with slightly less sincerity to Ali.

  “How far is it to the start of the walking trail?” asked Manon, lightening the mood.

  I didn’t know exactly but knew it was a long way.

  Ali asked the shepherds.

  “They say eighteen kilometers but I think this is wrong,” he said. “It is much less, maybe twelve.”

  “Can we hike it?” suggested Danilo, providing us with a glimmer of hope.

  Etienne responded with trademark Gallic shrug.

  Whatever the distance we would have to do it there and back. If it was the lower of the two estimates then it was doable, especially on the compacted track ahead, but I knew this driving section didn’t go the entire way to the hiking trail. From memory, it petered out near some isolated shepherds’ huts, beyond which you had to carve your own line through the landscape. Since no group had been to the arch yet this year, there would be no established vehicle tracks beyond the huts, only deep virgin snow to trudge through, something that on foot would make the journey incomparably harder.

  Just as we were pondering this, Turghunjun began casually throwing trash out of the vehicle’s window, littering the pristine snowy surroundings with old drink bottles, candy wrappers, cigarette packets, and the like. I picked them up and with a loud “No!” shoved them back into the rear of the vehicle. It was something I had encountered throughout Asia, but especially China, where the nonchalance for discarding trash from a car’s windows was staggeringly common. Just about every driver who gave me a lift in China did this, as if it was the most normal and acceptable thing in the world. Back in Urumqi, a Spanish traveler at the hostel had regaled Manon, Etienne, Danilo and me with tales of a horrendous forty-eight-hour standing room only train ride he’d taken, where, at a small single platform station in the middle of the desert, everyone was made to disembark so that the mountains of accumulated trash could be swept straight out into the desert.

  After our group council, we reached a decision: we would attempt to hike all the way to the arch, turning back at whatever point the sunlight dictated, in order to give us enough time to return to the vehicle before last light. This wasn’t without risk. We were in the middle of nowhere and would soon plunge into some seriously mountainous terrain. Since Ali had no map of the route, we would have to rely on his and my memory to reach the arch—and neither of us had been there more than once. Were we driving there and got lost then our protection would have come from being in a shelter on wheels; should we lose our way on foot then it might mean digging a snow hole and crawling in for the night; and if one of us broke an ankle or leg, then it was either a long wait for assistance in hypothermic conditions or a painful limp/crawl out. Or death.

  I grabbed my pack and labored forwards into a world of brilliant white, pushing hard through a glistening landscape of rounded hillsides and rugged cliffs. Every now and then a tuft of desiccated grass broke through the lower ground, dappling the snowy mantle with an occasional brown shock of vegetation. I set the pace, throwing myself into the task ahead and slipping into my own little world of exertion and resolve, my lungs heaving and heart racing in a frenzy, while clouds of vapor came billowing from my depths.

  We pushed on for hours, but finally a handful of tiny mud and stone structures appeared in the distance: a pen for sheep, a stable for horses, a shepherd’s home. Outside a little dwelling cocooned in snow, stood a proud head-scarfed woman wearing a chunky red sweater, thick brown skirt, and shiny black boots, which, oddly, she wore within a pair of sandals. Pottering about next to her was a toddler, wrapped up in a warm-looking pink jacket, woollen hat, leggings, and bright red boots. We nodded hello and stopped to get our bearings. The track ended here; from now on it was cross country the entire way.

  From inside the stable building came a cheerful Kyrgyz shepherd who walked over and joined us. It was obvious where we were heading. Pointing at the horizon, he gestured to a chaotic mountain range visible through a veil of alpine haze. It looked a world away, but hidden somewhere in its midst was Shipton’s Arch. In the snow the shepherd sketched our route, gesturing afterwards toward a valley we needed to aim for.

  We thanked him and set off.

  I pushed out in front again, squinting into the glaring light and wading through knee deep snow that made forward motion infinitely harder than on the track. It wasn’t long before I burnt myself out. The long days on the road and diet of a single meal a day had taken its toll on me physically. I was exhausted, and we had barely even begun. My pack felt heavier with every step. I stopped for a breather, while the others caught up, soaked in the mesmerizing beauty of the range ahead. Jutting thousands of feet into the thin air was a surreal landscape of towers and gulleys, canyons, and pinnacles, all dusted with an icing of snow, highlighting the contours of the darker rock. A movement caught my eye above. Soaring effortlessly on an invisible column of air, surveying its domain in an ever-rising spiral, was a majestic bird of prey. I marveled at its beauty and wondered if it could glimpse the elusive arch from its vantage point.

  Hours of drudgery came and went. My body became racked with an overwhelming fatigue, which I struggled to control, its extreme nature gnawing away at my purpose, tempting me with beguiling images of rest. I hadn’t been this tired for years. I began to wonder whether it was a hopeless quest. Would we get to see the arch at all before daylight demanded our return? Eventually though, we reached the range, entering into a narrowing canyon, its meandering walls climbing steeply in snowy layers of stratum, as a wild chaos of towers gradually began closing in. Etienne and Manon were ahead of me, their long distance cycling endurance serving them well. Their progress propelled me forward by default: I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to quit first. If they were going to make it to the arch, then so was I. I turned back to check on Danilo; he looked as battered as me. We shared eye contact and a nod but neither of us could muster a smile, it was too much effort right now. Far off behind him, now but a speck in the distance, was Ali. I turned back to the canyon ahead and plodded on.

  After what seemed an eternity, Danilo and I reached the spot where, had Ali supplied us with the correct vehicle, we would have parked at hours ago and begun our hike. If only. From here the towers began to close in even more, flanking us tightly on either side until the canyon narrowed into a steeply rising series of clefts, only arm’s width apart, tightly crowding out the now gray and ever-receding sky. Manon and Etienne had long disappeared from sight. I knew we were close, but couldn’t quite remember how close; weakness had clouded my memory.

  “Is it far now?” rasped Danilo.

  “I think it’s just around the next bend!”

  It was a sentence I would utter around every twist and turn in the rock from now on with increasing desperation, until the words had long lost all potency.

  We staggered forward into deep drifts. One cleft was so deep and compacted that it completely blocked our path, forcing us to jam ourselves between the crumbly canyon walls and shuffle our way up to the top layer. Between another narrow slot was a frozen waterfall. On my first visit to the arch we had used a removable bamboo ladder to scale this cleft, but things had evidently moved on; now a permanent metal ladder led the way.

  We pushed on up through the twisting slot canyons, rounded a bend and emerged from a bottleneck into a snowy wonderland of such perfection that it stopped us dead in our tracks. On either side the cliffs swept back to form an expansive valley, sealed at the end by a gentle sloping hill, above which rose a colossal elegant window of rock, over twelve-hundred feet from top to bottom. We stood in silence for a moment, enchanted and humbled by the sight in front of us. I smiled to myself. I loved this place and had finally returned.

  Suddenly, rapturous cries from above stole our attention.

  “Woohoo!”

  “Yeah! You made it!”

  Etienne and Manon were partially up a nearby slope punching the air. We clambered up to join them at this vantage point. Ecstat
ic greetings and triumphant expressions of accomplishment flowed among us, before Etienne dropped a bomb shell.

  “We will have to turn around soon if we’re going to make it back before dark.”

  “How soon?” asked Danilo.

  With a pained expression Etienne replied, “About five minutes.”

  I knew he was right. There was simply no time to press on and scale the slope leading to the arch, to stand beneath her and gaze out at one of nature’s finest vistas, meditating on the enormity and timelessness of things. She was tantalizingly close, roughly a quarter of a mile away, but in these conditions, with the snow up to our waists, that could take us the best part of an hour to cover. I was more disappointed for them than for me. What we could see from here held our rapt attention, and was awe-inspiring enough, but to be under the arch, I knew, was something else. To get so close and be denied the final glory was a bitter pill to swallow. But we were burning daylight. And that was that.

  I savored what time we had left and soaked in the splendor that lay ahead, reminiscing on the last time I was here with Emily. One noticeable difference between then and now was the merciful absence today of “buzzers”—rocks that detach themselves from peaks above and tear through the air with such speed as to create a heart-stopping “vhzzzzz,” before smashing into the canyon with an almighty echoing clang. Back then one particular buzzer had ripped the air with such ferocity, and sounded so close, that I’d yelled, “Get down!” to Emily before diving on top of her. Today’s heavy snow, it seemed, was holding them in place; and all was calm in the valley.